HELP! Having my lunch later is making me fat!

The other day I was down the shops minding my own business when I overheard a girl say to her boyfriend “The reason I’m putting on weight is because I’m having lunch two hours later than normal” immediately my ears were pricked as my BS detector began sensing some activity. She went on to say “My personal trainer told me that my body thinks it’s going to starve so it then grabs hold of the calories and doesn’t let them go”. Needless to say my BS detector was off the scale at this point.

Starvation Mode

What this young lady was referring to was something called ‘starvation mode’ and unfortunately within fitness circles it is more common to hear about starvation mode than it is to see Ant and Dec on the telly!

It centres on the idea that if you go without eating for more than a few hours your body senses this and thinks that is going to starve. The body then reacts to this perceived threat of starvation by decreasing it’s resting metabolic rate (the rate at which your body burns calories at rest) which in turn makes it easier for you to put on weight.

In short starvation mode is the idea that if you don’t eat regularly the rate at which your body burns calories slows down which in turn makes it easier for you to put on weight.

This is all pretty logical and makes perfect sense, right? Wrong!

The All Important Research

I know this may not be a trendy thing to do but if you have a look at the research there is just not the evidence to back up these claims. In a recent analysis of the numerous studies investigating whether eating frequent meals is beneficial for body composition, (amongst other things) the authors concluded that there is no evidence that the body goes into starvation mode.

Sssshhhh! Say it quietly but on this extremely rare occasion the girlfriend was wrong!

Now, the girlfriend in question can probably come up with more reasons as to why she was putting on weight than there are syllable’s in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name but the likely answer is she was consuming more calories through food than she was burning through physical activity! Regardless of what time she was eating her lunch, or her breakfast or dinner for that matter.

Now I know this is not a very exciting notion but if you want to lose fat the most important thing you have to do is control your overall calorie intake. Going a few hours or so without eating matters about as much as the words that come out of Piers Morgan’s mouth – very little!  

To book your free trial session, or for any fitness and nutrition advice please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Thanks for reading.

Matt

     matt@mlrpt.co.uk                               www.mlrpt.co.uk                              07939316401

  www.twitter.com/mlrpt                www.facebook.com/mlrpt            www.twitter.com/mlrpt